Religion-Related Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding Practices and Initiatives of the Contemporary Chinese State

Abstract

This paper reveals the contemporary Chinese state’s active role in shaping the country’s religion-related intangible cultural heritage (ICH) safeguarding, through a systematic review of China’s official inventories of national representative ICH projects and extensive investigations of relevant local practices and initiatives. Although China is ruled by a political party officially embracing an atheist ideology, various elements of the contemporary Chinese state have been proactively involved in safeguarding religion-related ICH. The Chinese state’s involvement in de facto religion-related ICH safeguarding predates its adoption of explicit ICH safeguarding narratives. Still, the Chinese state’s practices and initiatives in safeguarding religion-related ICH flourished after ratifying the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2004. Since then, China’s central government has established a nationwide framework to recognise representative ICH items, including religion-related ones. Beyond Beijing, various local state agencies have also developed noticeable enthusiasm for supporting the safeguarding of religion-related ICH. In addition to engaging directly with ICH safeguarding, the contemporary Chinese state has also shaped China’s religion-related ICH by working closely with some academics and religious groups.

Chinese Scholarship on Concurrent Analyses of Indonesia and Timor-Leste: Patterns, Themes, and Positioning

“…Therefore, these efforts can help understand the intellectual foundations of China's foreign policy towards Southeast Asia. Moreover, under certain circumstances, expert advice -including those from academics -can influence the policymaking process in China (Zhu, 2011;Xu and Tao, 2022a). These efforts can reveal Chinese scholars' academic frameworks and positioning, inspiring a deeper understanding of China's engagement with Indonesia and Timor-Leste.…”